Bones attempted to be topical this week. Touching on relationships, teen pregnancy and religious activities in the workplace. This week’s intern is a devout Muslim who prays to the east five times daily. I don’t mind shows dealing with religion directly as long as it does so in a responsible way. I’m concerned Bones isn’t quite serious enough to do it properly.

The body of a teenage girl is found encased inside a salt truck. Because of her distinctive size its easy to find the victim’s identity. She was about 12 weeks pregnant at the time so at first the investigation focuses on her father and mother. The parents’ appear conflicted and cagey. After some prodding, a friend of the victim (also pregnant) comes to visit Booth.  The friend reveals that she and the victim had shared a boyfriend. Booth visits the boyfriend who stupidly denies that he impregnated the girls. He claims that he never had sex with them, but that the victim had a conflict with her volleyball coach as well.

The coach explains that most of volleyball team has gotten pregnant over the last year. The show is trying to draw a line between a real life fluff news story about a group of high school girls that had a pregnancy pact. After talking to the girls, the investigation settles on the knocked up girl’s ring leader. Discovering that an pudgy boy is the unlikely father of the children, Booth takes an interest in the kid. Sadly, this interest leads to an ham handed dialogue scene between Booth and the kid in which Booth tells him about the responsibilities of fatherhood.

Angel’a lesbian lover Roxy also breaks up with her in the most stilted and lame manor I can think of and Hodgins comforts her (sleeps with her) and the two seem to be headed toward a new relationship. Much of Angela’s time on screen is spent chatting about her desire to “live in the moment” and “remain casual”. Its very squishy and self serving and it all makes Angela look even more lame and whorish than before.

As usual, despite all signs pointing in the opposite direction, the investigation comes back to the least likely and most often forgotten suspect. In this case, a chiropractor who the pregnant girl tried to extort money from. Many of the themes that get brought up in this week’s episode are really not explored at all. The new Muslim intern is bright, helpful and aside from his repeated prayers he wasn’t remarkable at all. I hope that was the point. Angela’s love life took up too much time and didn’t have any real payoff. Bone’s odd lack of impact on the episode was also unusual. Generally speaking I wouldn’t recommend this one. Keep moving people, there’s very little to see here.